This year's Al Habtoor Challenge will be the first event on the International Tennis Federation Women's Circuit calendar to hold a tournament in a newly introduced ITF tournament category which will add valuable additional world ranking points for all participating players. This upgrading of the event will make it the equivalent to a WTA tier four Tournament.

This new category will increase the WTA's ranking points for all tournament players by as many as eleven ranking points for the winner, eight for the runner up and five and three for semi finalists and quarter finalists respectively.

Samer Ghazi, Tournament Director said, "we are delighted to be the first to play this new enhanced category. It will enable us to attract much higher ranking players, which can only improve the quality of the tennis for spectators and help us built a higher profile for women's tennis in the Emirates".

"The Al Habtoor Challenge is now in its third year and this year's tournament promises to be the best yet," said Ghazi, "we are on a learning curve, our previous tournaments have taught us not to be complacent. We now have the expereince and confidence to continue building a successful international woman's event in Dubai.

The Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge will take place from the 1st - 9th April 2000; it is anticipated that this year's tournament will attract some of the major names on the world's top 100 list of women tennis players. Which will be a major step in promoting bigger and better professional tennis tournaments in the region.